About

Why non-intervention.com?

For a long time, it struck me as quite egotistical — and probably
arrogant — to think that I had anything to say about contemporary
U.S. foreign policy and the perils of its relentless interventionism
that would merit a website of my own. And to tell the truth, I still
have doubts that (a) I have much to say that is insightful on the issue
and (b) that anyone will much care what I have to say.

Still, I have had a good number of responses — positive and negative
– to what I have written on foreign-policy issues since I resigned
from the CIA in November, 2004. Since that date, I have been
privileged to have had the opportunity to write for Antiwar.com and
LewRockwell.com. I want to offer my thanks and sincere appreciation
for the space they gave me, and to say very clearly that by starting
my own site, I am in no way criticizing those sites. Indeed, I should
be most pleased — not to say shocked — if this site has anywhere
near the substantive success or level of interest Antiwar.com and
LewRockwell.com have achieved.

That said, I finally decided to try a site of my own because I am not
fully committed to an unyielding anti-war position. I certainly do
believe that we are engaged in far too many wars; that most of them
are unnecessary; and that almost all of them are the consequence of
Washington’s rabid post-1945 interventionism. To the extent that
Washington — under both Democrats and Republicans — stops
intervening in overseas affairs that are of neither genuine concern to
the United States nor threats to U.S. interests, we will find
ourselves in far fewer wars. And I might add, in passing, that if
Americans begin to aggressively insist that all wars in which their
country becomes engaged must — per the Constitution — be formally
declared by the vote of Congress, we would likewise have far fewer wars.

But I do believe some wars are both necessary and unavoidable; indeed, I believe that human beings are hard-wired for war; that they are not perfectible; and that the only mercy in war is an enormous application of military power that wins victory for the United States in the shortest possible time. At present, the only war that falls into the necessary and unavoidable category, in my view, is our war against al-Qaeda and the growing Islamist forces it leads and inspires.

Motivated by Washington’s interventionist policies in the Muslim world, that foe declared war on America in August 1996. Sadly, we have yet to find a U.S. political leader in either party who will forthrightly accept the fact that we are at war with the Islamists; nor have we found one who will tell the American people that we are at war because of what the U.S. government does in the Muslim world — unqualified support for Israel, support for Arab tyrannies, invading Iraq, etc. — and not for who we are and how we live here in North America.

Today, Americans are rightly suspicious of calling our struggle with
the Islamists a war because they — again rightly — cannot believe
that people would wage a nearly 14-year war and gladly die in the
conflict because American women go to university, there are early
primaries in Iowa every four years, and many of us have a beer or two
after work. The consistent lies of our last four presidents, leading
generals, much of the media, and nearly all of the academy — “They
hate our freedoms, not what we do” — have misled and blinded
Americans to the very real threat the Islamists pose to domestic
security in the United States and some of our interests overseas.

My primary interest, then, in starting this website, is to discuss the
almost totally negative impact of Washington’s bipartisan lust to
intervene abroad, as well as to talk about how interventionism
undermines U.S. security, the nation’s economy, and our country’s
social cohesion. I also think it is appropriate to discuss here how
far we have strayed from the Founding Fathers’ vision of what America
and Americans should be at home and how the republic should conduct
itself in the wider world. This site will argue that the Founders’
recipe for safeguarding America in 1789 remains pertinent today: all
Americans must be vigilant of their liberty; politically active in its
defense; broadly educated to help assess politicians, policies, and
foreign entities that threaten that liberty; and armed to defeat
enemies, foreign or domestic, who threaten that liberty.

It will quickly become clear that I am not an original thinker on
these issues, but rather a person who was educated with, and is loyal
to, the ideas of those brilliant and far-seeing men who founded our
republic. I look forward to presenting my ideas and commentary on this
site, and, even more, I look forward to considering, discussing, and
learning from the responses of my fellow citizens.

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Don't patronize the enemy. They mean business. They mean every word they say. They're killing us now. Their will is not broken, They mean it. ... If they're there, your job is to kill them all. I did not want to have them just retreat and have to fight them all over again. Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC